'World of Warcraft' still market leader

2013-02-07 21:17:40

"World of Warcraft" is still the top large-scale multiplayer online role-playing game in the world, according to figures released by Irvine-based game maker Blizzard Entertainment.

Activision Blizzard reported its earnings Thursday and included an update on the number of subscribers. Despite losing millions of players since peaking in 2010, the game remains the top subscription-based title in the genre, according to the numbers reported Thursday.

As of the end of 2012, "World of Warcraft" had 9.6 million subscribers, up from 9.1 million reported in August last year.

Eight years ago Blizzard Entertainment launched "World of Warcraft" with executives at the company expecting to attract maybe 1 million subscribers. By 2010, the game was on its third expansion and had 12 million subscribers with players in the United States paying about $15 per month to play.

In September Blizzard released the fourth expansion, "Mists of Pandaria," which helped add 500,000 players through the end of the year.

Overall, Activision Blizzard reported $4.86 billion in net revenue for 2012 on the record-setting sales of Blizzard's "Diablo III," as well as Activision's "Skylanders" and "Call of Duty" franchises. The company earned $4.76 billion in 2011.